Time Essay: CAMPAIGN COSTS: FLOOR, NOT CEILING

IN an expansive
mood, the mayor of Buffalo, N.Y., recently described himself as "the
best mayor that money can buy." He was kidding, of coursebut it was
the kind of joke that many politicians today would make at their peril.
Once such a line might have brought down the house, but nowadays it
comes uncomfortably close to the truthnot about corruption, but about
a far more costly phenomenon: campaign expenditures. The growing
dominance of TV on every level of political salesmanship has raised
campaign costs astronomically and convinced the public that politics...